Drifting Continents

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Vocabulary

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Pangaea - Means ''all lands'' - or that all continents were together. Also the name of the superconinent Wengner discovered.
Continental Drift - Moving of the contients apart.
fossil - a trace of and ancient orginism that have been preserved in rock.

Outline

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• The theory of continental drift

  • 1910 Alfered Wegener
  • Hypothosis was that the continents were once joined together.
  • 300 million years ago.

• Evidence from landforms

  • mountains
  • lined up with South Africa and Argentina.
  • european coal fields match with the ones in North America.

• Evidence from fossils

  • Found common dinosaur fossils and plant fossils at differet places.
    • Scientists found dinosaur fossils in places now seperated by water.
    • They found fossils of the dinosaurs Mesosaurus and the Lystrosaurus.
    • They couldn't of swum that far past the ocean.

• Evidence from climate

  • Scientists found plant fossils of tropical plants in Spitsbergen.
    • Spitsbergen is now ice-covered and has a harsh, polar climate.
    • Spitsbergen must've been located close to the equator.
  • Climate was colder in South Africa 300 million years ago.
    • Deep scraches in rocks show that continental glaciers once formed in South Africa.
    • South Africa was farther to the equator and much closer to the south pole 300 millions years ago.

• Scientists Reject Wegener's Theory

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  • Wegener did not provide a theory to answer how the continents moved.

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